


Backstroke

by kaithartic (bluedreaming)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 01:36:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1491922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedreaming/pseuds/kaithartic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yixing and Jongdae were more than friends in college before Jongdae fell in with the wrong crowd.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Backstroke

**Author's Note:**

> I'm very sorry, but I did it again. Instead of finishing chapter two of my longer story, I got sidetracked and wrote another oneshot. When will I ever learn?  
> This story is the result of having to go clean the church on a Saturday afternoon with my parents: the best music for cleaning (according to my iTunes genius playlist maker at least) is 25 tracks by the likes of Kendrick Lamar, A$AP Rocky, Eminem, JAY Z, I am Legion, Kanye West and Die Antwoord among others. Two hours of scrubbing toilets, the Swimming Pools song, and a cute Chenxing photo (remembered from twitter this morning) later, this story resulted. Any slang inaccuracies, plot holes and the general story and ending are completely my fault. Please forgive me.

_His hands are empty._

[11:01 PM]  
**Oh my God why aren't you here? This is awesome, this is where it's at man; the kegs are lined up out the door and did you see that? Wow, look those legs, hey yeah baby yes I'm talking to you. Woo! Come on! Where are you?**

Yixing holds his hands in front of him and spreads his fingers. There's nothing wrong with them, his nails are neatly trimmed and the skin is soft, but they just don't feel right.

It's been weeks since he's last seen Jongdae. He doesn't go to classes anymore, hasn't for a while, but he used to at least drop by the cafeteria for breakfast at lunch time. Yixing would be worried, except that he's been worried for a long time already, the feeling growing slowly along with the creeping wrongness that fills his hands.

[12:09 AM]  
**Hey babe I wish you were here, haven't seen you in a while, are you ditching me? Whatever, your loss, the party here is crazy! Wu has this stuff, I don't know what but it tastes amazing...Hey wait! Bring that 'round here again, I wasn't done...sorry Lay-baby gotta go...yeah I'm coming already! Keep it in your pants!**

He thinks back to their first year, two shy freshmen huddled over textbooks in the library, sweet smiles and fingers brushing, hands full of hair and sweet mouths touching under the trees in the park. His hands feel heavy with memory.

He goes to classes as usual, talks to classmates, takes notes that Jongdae never stops by to pick up, the thick paper slipping through his hands to draw red lines on the pale skin. His hands smudge his jeans but he doesn't notice anything apart from the prickling in his fingers. There's a ghost in his grasp which used to be filled with warmer things.

[01:17 AM]  
**Lay-baby are we crashing the town tonight! This pad's jammed and the guy who owns it must be loaded, check out his garage! Woo! Why don't you come on out? There's this mega-hot guy here, I don't know his name but man! Would he ever be something in bed! But don't worry you're my best Lay-baby and you know it...hey wait, you over there...introduce me to your friend, would you? I'll make it worth your while!**

He remembers when it began. There was a new friend, Chinese by way of the west coast, and mentions of crazy bashes, but he wasn't too worried. After all, he and Jongdae had a thing between them, didn't they? They stood, afternoons, watching the cricket game on the grass in the park, and Jongdae ran his fingers through Yixing's hair, pinkies lightly brushing the nape of his neck and sending delicious shivers right down his spine to reach the tips of his fingers. Yixing's fingers ached, needing to touch in return, but the crowd roared and he lost the chance.

He doesn't go to the park anymore, not after the emptiness between his fingers became too much to bear. Someone had coaxed him to try picking up the bat and the weight in his hands had been all wrong; he'd almost done something he would have regretted and so let the length of willow drop between his suddenly limp fingers to land audibly on the ground. The redness receded too slowly after that and he stumbled slowly home, the worried questions thrown after his staggering form fading into silence alongside the growing numbness of his grasp.

[02:26 AM]  
**Babe where are you? We've been going strong for days but it's amazing, the booze just keeps on coming and you should taste the stuff I just had: wow! I feel like I could go for weeks and the bass is awesome! The subwoofers are seriously sick! I can feel the music in my bones like when we used to play-**

Jongdae had started going out on the occasional evening, mentioning something about "this party" or "that bash", but, besides a slight annoyance at losing time together, Yixing hadn't complained much. His fingers were still full of Jongdae; warm cheeks cupped in soft hands and the smooth play of skin over ribs, and Jongdae would bury his hands in his hair, thumbs ghosting over closed eyes, and pull him forwards in the dark.

The messages are piling up on his phone; he listens once and then deletes, fingers dancing over the digital keys of his phone like they used to over piano keys on lazy Saturday afternoons when Jongae would sing and he would play and the music would pour out through his fingers to fill the air full of thrumming sound. But Jongdae doesn't seem to sing anymore either; his name is missing from the sheet in the practice room which Yixing doesn't really check, fingers furtively flipping through the ink-stained sheets, blue and black staining the tips of his fingers which he then licks clean, blue and black like bruises in his mouth where warmer things used to be.

[03:39 AM]  
**Lay-baby today is the best ever! We're doing target practice with beer bottles and you should see the glass shatter when you hit it just right, it's better than fucking art and...yeah okay I'm coming...sorry, gotta go babe but seriously, you need to be here.**

Yixing only really started to be concerned when Jongdae began cutting classes, at first just the occasional Monday but soon the weekends started growing from both ends, squeezing the few remaining days of the week tighter and tighter until they vanished entirely, along with his presence in the classroom. He tried going over to his dorm but the roommate threw him out, screaming an incoherent rambling about vomit, alcohol, and stronger things. He tried phoning again, the number of outgoing calls on his phone history growing exponentially along with the volume of the silence on the other end. No one ever picked up.

He runs his fingers over the cover of the leather music folio that Jongdae had given him for his last birthday, back when they still talked, met face to face, touched. The warmth of the leather is almost gone; the tips of his fingers curl back, chilled, to hide in his palms. He picks up the phone but the cool plastic and glass sits stiffly between his fingers and he can't press the buttons to dial.

[04:41 AM]  
**Hey Lay-baby, I never see you anymore, I miss running my hands through your soft hair, have you by chance gotten a hair cut recently? You know I like your hair longer...hey, that's my cup, bring that back...anyway you should really come down and we can do something, I miss you...what the hell man, fuck off now I'm leaving a message are you fucking blind?**

He actually did manage to track Jondae down once; there were mentions of such a huge affair going down on a Tuesday night that whispers reached even as far as the library where he wandered, rubbing hands together in the shadows of the stacks in an effort to lose the empty from his hands. Yixing showed up nervously at the party, ragged line of sleek sports cars and SUVs crowding the street in front of the huge house, yard already littered with red plastic cups and pools of darker stuff, every light ablaze and sound vibrating through the ground even past the street. He was afraid that someone would stop and notice he didn't belong as he picked his way through the rank chaos up to the front door, wide open and host to stumbling bodies swaying in and out of the building. But no one seemed sober enough to notice. He was afraid he'd never find Jongdae in the mess, maybe he wasn't even there he thought hopefully, but a loud shout and Yixing looked up to the balcony where he could see Jongdae perched on the railing behind a stunning pixie-faced blond boy, one hand spinning a glass holding something of a particularity frightening shade of green, the other running his fingers through the golden locks. Yixing felt his hands curl up in pain, sharp daggers stabbing into the joints of his fingers as he stumbled back out the door and down the walk, not caring as his feet were spattered by a glitter-sheathed bombshell throwing the stinking contents of her stomach up in the bushes.

The shadow of that remembered pain still lingers in the bones and the skin of his fingers and flares into bright flames when he touches tips to the monochrome piano keys in the practice room; he takes a leave of absence from his piano classes and makes excuses about old injuries, attending only the lecture classes where the scratching of sharp pencils over unspoiled paper seems easier to bear.

[05:50 AM]  
**Lay-baby it's been so long, I really miss you...someone said they saw you at a party once? Why didn't you tell me you'd stopped by?...Hey! Bring that back over here!...You gotta come around again, today is the bomb! They have a swimming pool and we're totally going to...What the fuck! Keep your hands to yourself mother-**

The phone is ringing. It's been such a long time that it takes several moments for Yixing to gather himself up enough to reach over and slide his shaking finger over the slick surface of the screen to answer.

"Hello?"

"Is this Zhang Yixing?"

"Yes." He doesn't recognize the voice on the other end of his phone, and the trembling of his fingers increases.

"Are you aware of the fact that you are listed as the only emergency contact for Kim Jongdae?" 

"I-I am?" The shaking in his hands has increased to the point where he can hardly hold the phone to his ear and it's difficult to make out what the voice is saying.

"I'm very sorry to inform you that Kim Jongdae passed away today at 06:00 AM due to an unfortunate accident where..."

The voice trails away as the phone drops out of Yixing's icy fingers and cracks on the tile floor, the loud crash followed by a resounding silence.

_His hands are still empty._

**Author's Note:**

> Story note: I'm assuming that Jongdae left direct-to-voicemail messages, since Yixing hadn't answered his phone in a very long while.
> 
> This story was inspired in part by Kendrick Lamar's Swimming Pools (Drank), lyrics [here](http://rapgenius.com/Kendrick-lamar-swimming-pools-drank-lyrics) and song [here](http://youtu.be/B5YNiCfWC3A) (note: I have not seen the music video but the song is explicit). The photo of Chen and Lay is from EXO-M's 2014-04-19 Overdose comeback performance & interview and can (hopefully) be found [here](https://twitter.com/yixingspixie/status/457560388607827968).  
> Seeing as this is another word-vomit, I'll likely be making minor grammatical and spelling corrections over the next little while.


End file.
